Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 13 (1999)

Thomas Weiss oversimplifies when he identifies the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) with the classicist position of nonconfrontation. The ICRC
defines humanitarian action to include advocacy through public and private
channels to protect individuals and communities against violations of
international humanitarian law. Weiss rightly points out the difficulty of
making belligerents, or "unprincipled actors," understand the value of
nonpartisan and impartial action. Still, the ICRC remains committed to finding
new language for communicating the principles of humanitarian action and new
techniques of negotiation. In this regard the ICRC is classicist. But this
classicism places the ICRC on the side of the solidarists in defending the
interests of individuals and communities in distress, and on the side of the
maximalists in its advocacy of international humanitarian law.

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